In where I get targeted by the Climate Science Rapid Response Team

Read the entire interview by James Stafford here to see what got them in a tizzy. And since the “Reality Drop” bot attack to “destroy denial” really didn’t work out so well, the big guns had to be called in.

Yes, the Climate Science Rapid Response Team, headed by John Abraham, has come to the rescue of the Gorebots. As is typical, I’m painted in ways that were never part of the original interview, because Abraham views lack of things he expects to see in print as “denial” on my part, a typical strawman tactic. What Mr. Abraham doesn’t know is that the interview that appeared was edited and shortened, and not all of what I said and referenced was used. Some of the references, like that to the IPCC SREX report on severe weather didn’t make the cut.

A few quotable quotes from the report from Chapter 4: (h/t to Roger Pielke Jr.)

“There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”

“The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”

“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”

I had to laugh though, at this transparent effort as it seems almost desperate in the tone to quash anything I said that is contrary to his organized views, having a difference of opinion isn’t skepticism according to Mr. Abraham:

The fact is that Mr. Watts is not a pragmatic sceptic. Real scientists are sceptical by nature. We don’t believe what our colleagues tell us until we verify it for ourselves. Scientists honestly develop views of how the world works and they test those views by experimentation. As a result of approximately 150 years of climate science, the vast majority of scientists are convinced that humans are a major cause of climate change. Mr. Watts, on the other hand, dismisses evidence that is counter to his viewpoint. That is not scepticism–that is plain denial.

Yes, he had to get that obligatory smear in there. SOP.

This one is a real howler:

It isn’t surprising that Mr. Watts disagrees with all of these other researchers. What I was surprised by was the fact he seems to disagree with his own research.

Gosh, would science ever advance if we didn’t build on and improve previous research? Is it somehow dishonest that a researcher realizes that an earlier effort had an incomplete or flawed result and then works to build upon that? Mr. Abraham’s framing makes it look dishonest, but then again, that’s what his behind the scenes organization is paid/funded to do. I suppose those years of unfunded work cataloging the national USHCN weather station network used for climate study was not a “We don’t believe what our colleagues tell us until we verify it for ourselves.” but a simple case of “denial”.

We know why the first effort (Fall et al) didn’t see much of a siting signal, so the second effort used a different method endorsed by the WMO, and found a strong signal. We built on the flaws of the first work, and we are preparing a paper for submission that includes dealing with the useful criticisms we learned from the discussion of the preliminary release.

Here’s another of Abraham’s lies of omission:

He didn’t tell you that he actually published a paper on this subject a few years ago where he concluded that temperature sensor siting had no impact on temperature trends.

LOL! Well, right in the abstract it says:

Comparison of observed temperatures with NARR shows that the most poorly sited stations are warmer compared to NARR than are other stations, and a major portion of this bias is associated with the siting classification rather than the geographical distribution of stations. According to the best‐sited stations, the diurnal temperature range in the lower 48 states has no century‐scale trend.

I can’t imagine oilprice.com sought out this interview, but rather they were likely badgered with emails filled with buzzwords like “false balance” into thinking they had to provide his view as counterpoint.

I do plan a much more detailed response to clear up all of the framing and lies of omission Mr. Abraham told about me, but for now I welcome what readers have to say about the interview and some of the points. You can read it here:

Somebody should debate this guy. Would you care to, Anthony? Maybe Roy Spencer? Lomborg? Rancourt? I find it amazing that the publication didn’t call him out on the most outlandish of his claims:

“We can do something about [climate change] now, with today’s technology.”

Ask him for the numbers on that, starting with the assumption (for the sake of argument) that CO2 is driving climate. Have him explain what humans need to do to get the atmospheric CO2 to level off, then to decline (i.e., lay out the relationship between human CO2 emissions atmospheric CO2 concentration). Have him then explain how he measures the climate “improvement” associated with, say, a 10 ppm reduction or a 50 ppm reduction, or whatever his “target” happens to be.

He might start to get red in the face at this point. A shrewd person might offer him evidence that the variances in the Keeling Curve are primarily dependent on one factor: temperature. This is not surprising, since human CO2 emissions are dwarfed by natural CO2 emissions (ocean outgassing and plant decay).

Then have him offer a WAG as to what his hoped-for CO2 concentration reduction will cost society, to the nearest Quadrillion Dollars. When he’s done with that, he can try to convince remaining believers why we should spend money on something which he can’t even measure when we have many pressing problems, most of which are very clear and very clearly man-made.

Oh, and by the way, did anyone mention that Asia has no intention of reducing its GHG emissions? Or that GHG emissions GROWTH in Asia outpaces GHG emissions REDUCTION in the W. World by about 20:1?

So, the placement of surface monitoring stations may have little effect? The external thermometer in my mini-van may not be accurate, but I have noticed that the temperature in the parking lot 100 feet away from a large government research facility is consistently 3F warmer than the temperature 1/2 mile away from the same facility.

“I suppose those years of unfunded work cataloging the national USHCN weather station network used for climate study was not a ‘We don’t believe what our colleagues tell us until we verify it for ourselves.’ but a simple case of ‘denial’.”

To them, this isn’t hypocritical. They don’t have to trust their “colleagues” because they’re fellow climate scientists. You’re just a blogger with actual, real-world data. You should shut up and defer to your betters and their infallible models.

Original work that doesn’t support the warmist viewpoint is not original work.

I looked at max temps in the Central UK vs bright sunshine hours (see Talkbloke’s) and proved for myself that what cannot be accounted for by changes in cloud cover matched PDO-AMO cycles so well that only 0.1C/century was unaccounted for. And I made predictions for the near-future (based on what was, will be: a status quo situation that is EXACTLY the IPCC narrative).

But I guess I’m not making the effort too, and have no legitimacy being a sceptic also.

John Abraham suffers from the Unique Solution Syndrome: there is only one (Unique) solution, and once deduce, by definition all other explanations must be wrong.

The practicioner of the Unique Solution Syndrome has this style of argument:

1. If at first you disagree with me, I am not explaining well. So I will explain in a different way.
2. If you still disagree with me,you must be stupid. So I will explain with smaller words.
3. If you disagree with me on the third round, you are being purposely obstinate to piss me off or block my work, so I will become angry, dismiss you to the public as a fool and refuse to speak to you. On anything.

It is heavily weighted to temperatures and precipitation, yet does not even include an index for tornadoes, or other instances of extreme weather such as blizzards.

It is also heavily biased to labelling higher temperatures as “extreme weather”. For instance mild temperatures in winter are rated as “extreme weather”. The index also doubles up on temperature by including separate indices for daytime high temps and nighttime low ones.

Thanks for the information. In my niavete I had assumed it was actually calculated using extreme events, ie floods, droughts, tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards. In any case, I wonder how they exclude observation bias. Ie, there are many more locations that now take measurements.

I was a “Reality Dropper” for about two days. It gets boring FAST. I was changing the little “factoids” they want you to copy/paste but I realized I’m also just spamming people myself.
———————–
Me too. I tried, but I just couldn’t bring myself to continue propagating spam after doing it for a day, not even to mock it.

To use this service, please fill out the inquiry form on the right to identify yourself and pose your question, along with a deadline for response if applicable.

That information will immediately be sent to four people: Dr. John Abraham, Prof. Scott Mandia, Professor Michael Ashley and Dr. Jan Dash. These four “matchmakers” will immediately forward the inquiry to those scientists with the most appropriate expertise. An authoritative response from one of the Climate Science Rapid Response Team scientists will be returned to the inquirer either directly or via one of the four matchmakers.

– – – – – – – – –

“An authoritative response” => On whose authority is the “authoritative response” claimed to be authoritative? Well, it is the 4Ms (four matchmakers) at CSRRT who decide who is the authority. It is the 4Ms who are the arbiter of climate science authority. They have claimed authority in the essentially non-authoritative process of science. No man can be an authority is science, only what nature shows us (observations) can be authoritative. Literally, their ‘authority’ is just a belief in what they assume is the truth.

“those scientists with the most appropriate expertise” => Who decides the expert(s) in climate science? Well, again, it is the 4Ms at CSRRT who decide expertise. Are the CSRRT experts in areas where they judge expertise? No.

“These four “matchmakers” “ are “Dr. John Abraham, Prof. Scott Mandia, Professor Michael Ashley and Dr. Jan Dash” => This is an ad hoc volunteer group of individuals who want to inform others about what they believe is the true science; to tell it to the media and public communities. They also assign people to claim truth in science at the discussions of the wonderfully independent and realistically focused open scientific venues such as WUWT.

The CSRRT process in flawed when viewed from any perspective found in the history of the philosophy of science. The CSRRT process is simply mocking / imitating both the established science processes and the dialog of the general scientific community. The other word for mocking / imitating is ‘pseudo’. The CSRRT wishes to place their pseudo-process as equivalent to the honored scientific process. Feynman explained that there are ‘cargo-cult’ science believers who are mocking / imitating science. The CSRRT process has the elements of ‘cargo-cult’ science.

If the CSRRT were to be part of the real scientific dialog that is inherent in the established science processes then they would simply have a blog based on principles like CA, WUWT, etc., etc., etc.

‘the vast majority of scientists are convinced that humans are a major cause of climate change.’

No matter how many times this is claimed=, the reality is no one knows what the majority of scientists really think becasue no one has ever asked them . The ‘surveys’ that have been done represent a tiny minority of people some of which where not even ‘scientists’ .
I continue to be amazed that the ‘standards ‘ within climate science remain so poor .

Abraham: “As a result of approximately 150 years of climate science, the vast majority of scientists are convinced that humans are a major cause of climate change.”
BBC Interview with Phil Jones
Interviewer: “N – When scientists say “the debate on climate change is over”, what exactly do they mean – and what don’t they mean?”
Phil Jones: “It would be supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think this. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8511670.stm

So Abraham is a skeptic who doubts his colleagues and performs experiments to verify their work ?
I would love to see the results of those experiments.
I would also like Abraham to list a few ways in which the theory might be falsified, after all, if we have the technology to alter the climate, we must have the technology to conduct those experiments

It might be an overwhelming task, but having an Alternative Climate Science Rapid Response Team would be a good thing. I guess Steve McIntyre is the expert on hockey sticks. Perhaps Bob Tisdale on ocean related things. The problem is that Jonestown Team is so well financed that it is tough to keep up.

So Dr. Abraham says “Ironically, ‘climate change’ is a better description of what is happening, and climate scientists [now] use it to be more accurate.” While he proceeds to beat up Anthony for “disagreeing with his own research”, he concurrently confirms that he has changed his own opinion by moving from “global warming” to “climate change.” Seems like 14 years without a temperature increase must have “disagreed” with his prior notions about ever increasing warming and forced him to be “more accurate.” Funny how his disagreement with past conclusions about warming is not perceived the same way on his side of the fence.
Anthony – While you probably needn’t respond to Dr. Abraham’s tripe, I look forward to his well-deserved butt-kickin’!

John Whitman says:
March 27, 2013 at 9:59 am
What is the Climate Science Rapid Response Team (CSRRT)?
________________________________________________________

Thank you for that information.

MatchMakers?

I found that quite funny and reminiscent of an old game played some years back. They too had technical difficulties that needed rapid responses due to their poor preparation skills and lack of testing :-)

I’ve wondered if we’ve passed Peak Intelligence. Education is continually dumbed down and watered down, with our native appreciation of hard facts forcibly supplanted with mandated compassionate acceptance of the roiling changeable grey. The undereducated lesser folk breed as always, while the intelligent and elevated are exhorted to be too compassionate about our imperiled planet to even consider passing their superior genetics onto future generations of world savers.

Now I’m worried if we’ve been thrust past Peak Truth. Suppliers of the pure stuff are hard to locate, practically everyone adds their own flavoring and uses special packaging. A lot of what’s out there has been contaminated, adulterated, may even be counterfeit. “You can’t handle the truth!”, and lots of profit is made shoveling out what the pushers have trained us to find palatable. Try comparing the taste of butter flavor microwave popcorn to a buttery cracker, to the real taste of actual unsalted butter.

That’s why I like WUWT and always have. Truth as pure as it can be found, only packaging is sizing to fit a post with a nod to accessibility for the non-geniuses (or is that non-genii?).

And these “Truth™ merchants” don’t like Anthony’s distributing of high-quality high-purity product, that is neither authorized by them nor cooked up using the approved recipes and ingredients, for free?

@John Whitman, thanks for that info, so apparently Abraham can not find a team scientist to provide a response.
He is flailing away at straw man arguments around Anthony, in a desperate pursuit of attention, WUWT being #1 in climate science.

Abraham: “As a result of approximately 150 years of climate science, the vast majority of scientists are convinced that humans are a major cause of climate change.”

That insinuates that this conclusion has stood the test of time for 150 years. But actually the opinion of climate science on this matter did not become the consensus until about 25 years ago. (It is based on findings that go back 150 years, but that’s not the connotation his words carry.)

Further, most climate scientists are not “scientists” first. Most got into the field, IMO, because it appealed to them as environmentalists or socialists, since it offered the opportunity to employ alarmism to impose environmental regulations on behalf of the global community. If that wasn’t their initial motivation, they were subjected to indoctrination in school and peer pressure afterward to behave as though they were.

Their other motivation is that of blinkered, reductionist “basic” (radiative) physics, like Hansen, who think of the climate system as a black box whose chaotic internals are irrelevant in the long run, and which can only be affected by positive feedbacks, not negative ones.

“Ask him for the numbers on that, starting with the assumption (for the sake of argument) that CO2 is driving climate. Have him explain what humans need to do to get the atmospheric CO2 to level off, then to decline (i.e., lay out the relationship between human CO2 emissions atmospheric CO2 concentration).”

That is the nut of it without doubt. How many gazillions of dollars spent would it take to move the needle at all and how exactly (for the sake of argument) do you measure that. That is the weakest point of their weak arguments and why they always change the subject from cost/benefit to about how the rich pay the freight and the ‘green’ jobs hoo-ha.

Anthony: After reading this interview I was just spewing. The BS is just unbelievable! I do not know even where to start. 95% of it is just warmist crap! I tried to post there but the system would not allow me. ( A. Watts said “The idea that Hurricane Sandy, a minor class 1 storm, was somehow connected to CO2-driven ‘climate change’ is ludicrous.”Well, scientists studying this disagree with him.) Really well Mr Abraham, why do not you ask an expert in this field: Chris Landsea, he will totality disagree with you as it is really impossible to measure. (Many people, Mr. Watts included, are committed to an ideology that precludes the ability to objectively view the science. As a result, they convey incorrect information to their readers who then are not able to make informed decisions.) WTF: This is just another huge lie! Us skeptics as far better informed and read than your average alarmist/warmist. (We concluded that at best, corn-based ethanol is a bridge fuel) Ha ha , a bridge fuel. It is a massive fail! ( When we can show that clean and renewable energy is the engine that will provide economic opportunity in the future) Lol, ha ha, the engine! See more warmist green crap. These people really get me wild!

rogerknights says:
March 27, 2013 at 11:30 am
“Abraham: “As a result of approximately 150 years of climate science, the vast majority of scientists are convinced that humans are a major cause of climate change.”

That insinuates that this conclusion has stood the test of time for 150 years. But actually the opinion of climate science on this matter did not become the consensus until about 25 years ago. (It is based on findings that go back 150 years, but that’s not the connotation his words carry.)”

It is also plain wrong. 150 years ago there was still the debate between the atomists and the non-atomists – the existence of atoms was far from accepted.

It might be an overwhelming task, but having an Alternative Climate Science Rapid Response Team would be a good thing…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Think about it – WHY is a Climate Science Rapid Response Team was NEEDED in the first place?

Because most ‘Deniers’ are so well informed about climate science that they can argue circles around the rank and file warmists. Most warmist are young passionate liberal arts types. They have neither the training nor the mental aptitude to deal with the science. Nor do they have the patience (Which is why ScS et al have such an abysmal following.)

This is not a derogatory remark BTW but a scientific fact backed up with my own frustration of trying to switch from the analytical to the artistic side of my brain (takes about an hour min.)

“We don’t believe what our colleagues tell us until we verify it for ourselves”.

The irony is of course that this is precisely what “we” did not do: no climate scientists has spent any time on checking the so called un-assailable physical theory underlying the whole farce. If they had they would have found the flaw in it, the flaw that grossly overestimates the primary effect of an increase in CO2 and hilariously blows the feedback on watervapour out of all proportion, when it is actually negative.

But nature appears to have its own way of pointing out those errors and I look forward to seing these pompous prats eat their hats after a few more winters like this one have made the folly crystal clear for anybody with a brain.

“The proper route to an understanding of the world is an examination of our errors about it.”
Errol Morris

“To call in the statistician after the experiment is done may be no more than asking him to perform a post-mortem examination: he may be able to say what the experiment died of.”
Ronald Fisher
============
I really like the second one :)

(…) Most warmist are young passionate liberal arts types. They have neither the training nor the mental aptitude to deal with the science. Nor do they have the patience (Which is why ScS et al have such an abysmal following.)

In general I’ve found “young passionate” is a primary indicator of a lack of appropriate mental faculties.

A few days back, there was a young actress on a “background noise” TV talk show, I think it was Letterman. She passionately mentioned her gluten-free diet. “What is gluten?” After some stammering brought on by her being forced to put her brain in gear while she was comfortably coasting downhill, and having to stomp the hybrid electric gas pedal to get up to speed, she coughed up something like:

“Gluten… It’s filler. It’s… fat. Gluten is fattening filler.”

Sounds like someone who’s so exceptionally worried about global warming, she’ll conscientiously decide to only own one CO₂-spewing Ferrari, just like any other environmentally responsible citizen of the planet.

The bigger the lies they tell about you, the more effective you are when you remain rational and calm. “Answer not a fool according to his folly.” Keep up the consistent high quality of WUWT and the slanders of these vile people ultimately will fail.

This Welsh farmer is lucky he has a sheepdog with a good nose to dig out his pregnant sheep, some of which had spent 3 days hiding under a drift of Paul Viner: “Children aren’t going to know what snow is!” (but sheep might be able to). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI053DSGTVo

Watts must be very influential for Abrahams to focus on him.
In his interview, Watts provides a very prudent pragmatic perspective, very similar to what I would argue.

Abraham commits equivocation by using “climate change” to mean “majority anthropogenic global warming”. I.e. he implicitly makes the antiscientific presupposition that climate was in equilibrium before industrial CO2, rather than recognizing that climate has been “changing” for billions of years by greater than IPCC’s fears of global warming.

“we are the experts and always right. By implication, if anyone disagrees with us, then they are wrong.”

This all collapses if an honest difference of opinion is possible. It becomes more than just childish dogma when those in the climate community reach conclusions that are inferior to that which the non-experts claim. Or if they go beyond their narrow confines to other areas where they are not expert.

Well, Jeopardy is coming to their defense also. Alex just asked a contestant–a weather man–if predicting is “more difficult now that we have global warming.”
The answer was “Yes, the variability is much greater.”

A.D. Everard says:
March 27, 2013 at 12:27 pm
….What were they fretting about 150 years ago – too much horse sh!t?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually yes, The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894 In NYC the Claremont Riding Academy stables built in 1892 was in continuous operation until April 29, 2007 when its last 45 horses were sold. (My aunt rode there in a drill team over eighty years ago.) With the way things are going they may have to reopen stable soon…. now that we have the solution to the Manure Crisis Biogas from Manure: Anaerobic Digester

Nutelli has a lengthy attack piece up at SKS against Anthony over the same interview. As usual the Keystone Kops of Klimate Change over there are twisting themselves in circles to ban anyone that would raise a voice against the cause.

Despite a post all about attacking Anthony and WUWT the topic is not WUWT, under threat of castration (ok, well, just suspension and ridicule) – unless of course its one of them doing the attacking. And now some are asking why the heck they’re giving Anthony all the free coverage.

They’ve also abandoned any pretense of fairness – I was banned for complaining when they deleted a post where I acknowledged to Nutelli I’d missed a point he’d made. By deleting the post it makes me look like I blew off his claim, when in reality I immediately responded at took responsibility.

When I expressed my concern a 2nd time it was deleted again. And right after, seemingly on que a post appeared attacking me for blowing off Nutelli and not acknowledging I was wrong.

I pointed out that comment directly proved my point – that their deletion of posts with intent/affect to make skeptic posters look bad – opposite to reality. That got me booted for failing to abide by their juvenile rules.